Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Doug and Allen today for their last morning with me.  We fished last night and had good fishing on my only night trip of the year.  Winds were steady out of the north and a bit chilly but not real cold.  I thought the fishing would be a bit better then it was.  We didn’t do much early on and took a while to find some live bait.  We did finally get some and then set up and as we were trolling around the bridge we had a big fish destroy a mullet!  It was a commotion  getting through the bridge but we did and landed the fish in spectacular fashion!  A nice 90 lber or so.  It was good we got it boatside for pictures as the fish last night didn’t cooperate for that.  Didn’t do much after that and only saw one other fish caught.  Back to my full day routine tomorrow and possibly going to head out into the backcountry depending what the winds do, heard some fish had moved into some areas back there.  Would love to get away from the crowds again!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out for two half days today morning and evening fishing around islamorada for tarpon.  Actually this morning we did a 3/4 day 6 hour trip.  We left early and I was glad we did.  Fishing was good to start we hooked 3 tarpon and landed 2 in the first hour.  After that the tide quit and it was very slow to get going the other way.  Also very calm and clear water, so not ideal for our tarpon fishing locally!  We moved around a bit and saw plenty of fish but didn’t have much action after that.  We ran all the way further south to the bigger bridges and gave it a whirl there.  Just a ton of fish but not much doing, we saw a couple boats catch fish out of the dozen or so that were there in about an hour.  By 10:30 though we had a bit of activity, we hooked a fish on our flourocarbon leader as i had to scale down due to the clear water.  Unfortunately though he went through the leader right away, sometimes that’s the problem with doing that you get the bites but they don’t often stay on there.  Some guys leave the drags super light and just race them down to get a ‘catch’ but sometimes thats what you must do.  Anyways after that we had a few good cheap shots and blow ups on our live baits but no other takes.  2 for 4

This evening was a little better we didn’t find much at our first stop, a few fish but no action aside from bonnet head sharks.  At one of the bridges though we found a pile of tarpon and they were fairly happy.  We had 3 solid bites and landed two nice fish on our live baits.  Didn’t cooperate for good boat pictures though as we pulled the hooks as soon as we really started to pull on them.  We had another 7 or 8 fish blow up our mullets too which was very exciting.  By 7:00 though the tides slowed down again and everything seemed to die out.  Anyways two good trips landing a couple tarpon on each one, we’ll take it!  Looks like we have some wind swinging around with a weak cold front we are getting, but not going to blow very hard nor should the temperatures drop.  Have a half day with my guys from this evening tomorrow, hopefully it’ll be good!  2 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

I had return customers Matt Newman and his son Zack out today.  They wanted to try for tarpon and snook.  I told them we’d been getting a few tarpon, and had some luck with snook yesterday but may be different today with the wind going more southerly.  We caught bait early and headed out back.  I went to a new area where I had a report there was a lot of fish.  It proved true there were a ton of tarpon around!  We got bit pretty quick and missed our first couple opportunities but soon Matt had a nice 100 lb tarpon on he landed!  Then it was Zacks turn he had a couple more bites and landed both fish, but one had gotten wrapped up in a tree limb or something though we did get the leader on him before he broke off for a technical release.  By 10:30 or so though things seemed to quiet down.  The tarpon quit showing and we had a couple big shark bites that broke us off.  After that we tried a few snook areas but didn’t have any luck with that unfortunately.  But overall great day with three big tarpon landed and missed a few more.  I heard it was very good locally around town too today, which is good news as I have some shorter half day and 3/4 day trips coming up.  3 for 7

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing